Matter of perspective: "Fall of Constantinople or Conquest of Constantinople." The remark of Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul) came to my mind as I was reading Bernardo Veksler's "Una Visión Crítica de la Conquista de América." Let's put it this way: history is always written by the conquerors, and always lived by those conquered. For Europeans, 1492 was the year they discovered the New World. For the natives, "ellos descubrieron que eran indios y que vivian en América" (Eduardo Galeano).

Were the societies of the natives more developed than the Europeans (as Veksler suggests)? There were many populations, some very advanced, some others still in the phase of hunters-gatherers. Speaking about the advanced ones, I would say they had a civilization developed on different dimensions than the European culture. Though very sophisticated they were easily conquered, just for lacking some European elements that proved vital. It was also the total lack of communication between the various natives' countries (it's the opinion of Yuval Noah Harari). Each time the conquerors were able to play the same tricks. Country after country it was el asombro, luego el miedo ante las armas de fuego, las armaduras y el caballo.

Firstly I considered the book of Veksler as radical to the extreme. Then I realized that it was just factual. Europeans discovered a new world with huge reserves of gold and silver. They conquered it, organizing a huge scale genocide of the indigenous populations. As they needed workforce, they brought slaves from Africa - also on a huge scale; actually a second genocide. As a result, immense quantities of gold and silver were transported to Europe (I remember someone's remark in a discussion I had long time ago: the quantities of precious metal robbed from the New World were so inordinately large that Europe witnessed a period of gold devaluation).